Monument Preservation in San Rafael, CA

California Business and Professions Code section 8771 is short and unforgiving: a survey monument may not be destroyed, and where construction will disturb one, a licensed surveyor must set durable reference ties and file a Corner Record or Record of Survey before the work happens, then restore the point afterward. The obligation runs with the construction, which means the contractor and the owner inherit it, not the surveyor who set the monument decades ago. In San Rafael the exposure is routine rather than exotic: street resurfacing and reconstruction downtown and along the Miracle Mile, utility undergrounding and trenching, sidewalk and curb ramp work, crossings and improvements along the SMART corridor, and Caltrans work on Highway 101 and the 580 approach toward the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.

The city's two halves fail differently. In the Canal district and the low ground near the water, monuments sit in fill that has settled, been trenched repeatedly, and been repaved in layers, so the point that appears on a map may be buried under inches of asphalt or gone. In Terra Linda, Sun Valley, and the hill neighborhoods, the mid-century subdivisions are well monumented on paper but the physical evidence has been disturbed by driveway widening, retaining wall repairs, and slope movement. Either way the work is the same sequence: research the record, search for the physical evidence, tie what is found to durable references outside the construction limits, and file before anything moves.

Our laser scanner adds a layer that photos do not: the monument is recorded in its actual setting, with curb line, wall, pavement joints, and adjacent improvements captured as measured geometry, so a reset months later can be verified against how the site really looked. Corner Records are filed with the Marin County Surveyor at the Department of Public Works, and Records of Survey are recorded with the Marin County Recorder, both here in the county seat. See monument preservation under section 8771, and our San Rafael parcel map services.